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Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

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Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#191

Post by echelon »

nostrademons wrote: post #101
bjoli wrote: post #50

I am a professional musician (bassoon player in a symphony orchestra). I can, if I practice it a couple of times a week, achieve and sustain perfect pitch. I had no semblance of perfect pitch until I decided to practice it at age 24. Before that the only chance I had to guess a note was to put in in relation to my own voice. Even though I don't practice this anymore (it isn't very useful), I still often just instinct…

I took a music theory class in college that had a very heavy ear-training component. The TA in the course would often talk about the concept of "pitch memory", both absolute and relative. In other words, perfect pitch isn't a binary concept of you either have it or you don't, but it's your ability to remember and reproduce absolute pitches from memory. What we think of as "perfect pitch" is the extreme version of thi…

> It wouldn't surprise me that training this ability when you're young leads to much longer-term memory than training it as an adult, the same way that training gymnastics when young leads to the ability to do a back handspring from muscle memory, or training a foreign language gives you a much better ability to speak it without an accent.

This is a function of time, not age.

Adults can (though seldom) learn languages to perfect fluency with zero accent. It's all a matter of how much time and immersion you put into it.

Adults are mostly too busy and have too many responsibilities. Children have all the time in the world.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#192

Post by [deleted] »

gabereiser wrote: post #189
bjoli wrote: post #50

I am a professional musician (bassoon player in a symphony orchestra). I can, if I practice it a couple of times a week, achieve and sustain perfect pitch. I had no semblance of perfect pitch until I decided to practice it at age 24. Before that the only chance I had to guess a note was to put in in relation to my own voice. Even though I don't practice this anymore (it isn't very useful), I still often just instinct…

I would imagine relative pitch is more useful/practiced? I was a musician in a rock band for many years (you never heard of) and I have relative pitch. I started in orchestra on the cello at age 7. Banged on drums during middle school. Picked up guitar in high school and formed a band. I can identify chords and I can tell you what note if I have another note as a reference (like you do with your voice).

[deleted]

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#193

Post by cormacrelf »

muxator wrote: post #78
vnorilo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cellist for the last 35 years here. No perfect pitch. My "perfect" note identification is based on timbre: I know what each note sounds like on the instruments I know intimately. For synthetic tones, I will be off +/- 3 semitones because I will be using an aural memory of the cello a string as a reference, rather than recognizing the frequency like the perfect pitch folks do. Never occurred to me to practice perfect…

Same for me on the guitar: it is easy to distinguish even the same note on different strings. Chords, too. But it's more a timbre plus relative pitch sensibility. I never felt the "need" for absolute pitch.

It is useless for everyone except singers. If you’re a singer, you can cold-start a song in tune and have the band come in seconds later. Hard to do that without the confidence that you both started correctly and haven’t drifted.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#194

Post by [deleted] »

sparky_z wrote: post #97
49531 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are tools you can use that will play a note like C and then another note, and you listen and guess what the 2nd note is. It just takes a bit of consistent trial and error learning, after a bit you get the hang of it and kind of create a mapping of what notes sound like in your head. I use a app called Tenuto for it, but I am sure there are others out there.

That would be practising "relative pitch", which is a standard part of ear training. "Perfect pitch" means being able to identify the 2nd note when played by itself, without hearing the 1st note to reference from.

[deleted]

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#195

Post by slmjkdbtl »

SeanLuke wrote: post #167
slmjkdbtl wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need to transpose? You mean when playing a transposed instrument like woodwinds / brass?

Jazz. Jazz is all about transposition.

Interesting, I also play jazz with perfect pitch, but I always just think in absolute pitch even when there's a lot of modulation (and also learned my instrument in concert pitch).

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#196

Post by alfiedotwtf »

nostrademons wrote: post #101
bjoli wrote: post #50

I am a professional musician (bassoon player in a symphony orchestra). I can, if I practice it a couple of times a week, achieve and sustain perfect pitch. I had no semblance of perfect pitch until I decided to practice it at age 24. Before that the only chance I had to guess a note was to put in in relation to my own voice. Even though I don't practice this anymore (it isn't very useful), I still often just instinct…

I took a music theory class in college that had a very heavy ear-training component. The TA in the course would often talk about the concept of "pitch memory", both absolute and relative. In other words, perfect pitch isn't a binary concept of you either have it or you don't, but it's your ability to remember and reproduce absolute pitches from memory. What we think of as "perfect pitch" is the extreme version of thi…

I've never heard of pitch memory before, but this makes total sense. When things make noise around me, I sometimes remember songs that have that note. My favourite one was my motorised stand-up desk which when going up would sound the same as Beyonce's Crazy in Love - and when I think about it right now, I hear the pitch, the song, and that motor in my head.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#197

Post by dehrmann »

b800h wrote: post #134

You don't want perfect pitch. Various people suggested that one of my sons (aged 9) had absolute pitch, as he could remember the starting notes for pieces from memory. Unfortunately, the organ in our church is a quarter-tone sharp. The goal should be very very very good relative pitch.

The other issue I've heard is it shift when you get old. I imagine everything sounding broken.

Luckily, perfect-enough relative pitch is known to be very trainable in adults.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#199

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

One time in physics lab we had an experiment with tuning forks. I rung the fork, put it to my ear, did the “do re mi” song in my head and I unmistakably recognized that one of the notes matched. I told my lab partner, we looked it up and determined that I was correct.

I don’t have much musical training, I’ve tried to learn an instrument a few times but never motived myself to practice.

Re: Children aged 2-6 successfully trained to acquire absolute pitch (2012)

#200

Post by nostrademons »

samstave wrote: post #183
nostrademons wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took a music theory class in college that had a very heavy ear-training component. The TA in the course would often talk about the concept of "pitch memory", both absolute and relative. In other words, perfect pitch isn't a binary concept of you either have it or you don't, but it's your ability to remember and reproduce absolute pitches from memory. What we think of as "perfect pitch" is the extreme version of thi…

I wish I was in this class?? LINK????

It was Tonal Harmony and Counterpoint. Unless you're at the specific college I went to, it wouldn't do you any good, but an equivalent course is offered at most universities and liberal arts colleges.

FWIW I found it well worth it. My mom had been encouraging me to take something far outside my major (physics at the time, then I switched to CS), and was suggesting Art History. I couldn't make Art History work with my schedule, but I took this music theory class and it was great.

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